


Letting Go

by Canon_Is_Relative



Series: The Stories We Tell, The Lies We Live [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Star Trek Beyond, Yorktown, missing scenes at Yorktown, questioning of life choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 15:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14405331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: Sulu isn't the only one to have family meet him at Yorktown: McCoy's ex-wife and daughter arrive to spend time with him.A handful of missing scenes from the time they spend at Yorktown before Enterprise is sent into the nebula. It isn’t exactly shore leave, but it isn’t time Kirk and McCoy expected to have together, either, and to McCoy it feels like a gift he’s afraid to look in the mouth.





	Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> This is another installment in my "Jim & Bones in…" series, but it stands alone -- all you have to know is that Jim and Bones were a ~thing when they were at the Academy, but have agreed to keep a lid on things now that they serve together because if they were caught fraternizing they'd be assigned to different ships... and over the years this self-imposed separation has become, "We can hook up but only on shore leave."
> 
> Title comes from [this song](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vgmXiTG21yM), the one Jim was listening to their first night at Yorktown.
> 
> Thanks to ImpishTubist for the beta <3

McCoy pressed the door chime and leaned against the wall. A moment later he heard Jim's muffled command, the door slid open, and McCoy stepped over the threshold, giving a low whistle.

The view from the room they’d given Jim was incredible. If you liked that kind of thing, anyway. At thirty floors up from ground level – if you could even call it ground level – it felt like they could have reached up and touched the convergence point at the center of Yorktown. All these skyscrapers stretching not _up_ but _in,_ McCoy couldn’t get his mind around it, and didn’t particularly care to try.

Jim turned away from the window, his face lighting up, then growing puzzled. “Bones! Where’s Jo?”

“Ah,” McCoy waved a hand. “The damn flight was delayed, she and Joss only left Cerberus an hour before we got here. They’ll get in tomorrow. Thought we could finish that drink in the meantime.”

“I’m sorry, man. That’s rough, I know how much you want to see her.”

McCoy pulled the bottle of whiskey out of his bag and used it to point at Jim. “Forget it, you know it’s _you_ she can’t wait to see.” He opened it while mimicking his little girl’s voice as he did. “’Daddy, _promise_ that I’ll get to see Uncle Jim while I’m there, _please!_ ’” He looked up, glaring as Jim put two glasses down on the table between them. “It was bad enough when I only had to compete with my ex-wife for her attention, and then your pretty face had to come into the picture.”

Jim only smiled, pouring a generous splash into his glass before sliding the bottle back across the table. McCoy watched him covertly as he poured his own drink. Time was, ribbing Jim about Joanna’s infatuation was enough to get him smiling and teasing right back. He knew that Jim missed her, too. Never passed up a chance to send his love whenever McCoy was writing home, along with whatever weird news and usually-not-very-funny joke he’d heard recently.

“I’m having dinner with the Sulus tomorrow night," Jim said after a beat. "You three should join us. Has Jo ever met Demora?”

“Yeah,” McCoy touched his glass to Jim’s and took a long drink. “God, that’s good. Yeah, at that godawful thing before the launch.”

“Demi was just a baby then, did you see how much she’s grown?”

McCoy nodded and shrugged. “She’s the age for it.”

Jim’s eyes were faraway as he brought his glass to his lips and took a sip. Then they sharpened as he took another, and finally turned a grin – not the full-watt Kirk Smirk, but a halfway decent attempt – on McCoy. “This really is the good stuff. You stole it from Chekov?”

McCoy shook his head. “It’s like he wants me to find his contraband, the kid has no imagination.”

Jim snorted and took himself back over to the window, leaned against it and looked out. Imitation sunset lighting was diffuse over the city below, before, above, and all around them. Jim mumbled something to the computer and music started up partway through a song, something old, slow but with a heavy, purposeful beat. _Ah, she tastes like wine, such a human being so divine. Oh, she feels like sun, Mother Nature look at what you’ve done. Oh, I feel like letting go._

McCoy came up behind Jim, slipped one hand under the waistband of his dress slacks to rest over his hip, and pressed his lips against Jim’s neck. “This thing polarized?” he asked, tapping his glass against the window in front of them.

Jim nodded and McCoy kissed him again, working up his neck to his ear, but besides not moving away Jim didn’t respond, and Bones straightened behind him, took another slow sip of whiskey, and watched the surreal city spread out before them.

“Did you eat yet?” Jim asked finally.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah, I had that – hey, where were you?”

“You said I could skip it, family leave.”

“But your family didn’t show—“

“—And you thought I’d voluntarily spend my evening at an admiralty function instead? Have you met me?”

Jim laughed, finally turned his head and slotted his lips against McCoy’s. He tasted like whiskey, and he kissed like he was a million miles away.

“Hey, you okay?” McCoy pulled away, tried to look at Jim, who slid his fingers between two buttons of McCoy’s civilian shirt and tugged lightly.

“I can’t believe you’d deprive me of one of my greatest joys in life,” Jim said, speaking to McCoy’s lips and not meeting his eyes.

“Oh? And what’s that.”

“Seeing you in your dress blues,” Jim said, like Bones was an idiot for having to ask.

McCoy grimaced. “I hate those things.”

“I know you do,” Jim finally lifted his eyes, all bright and teasing, to fix McCoy with one of those _looks_ about which he’d had to have a very strongly worded conversation with Jim, back when _Jim_ became _Captain_ and _flirting_ became _fraternization._ “But you see, Bones, it’s just that you look so very, very good in them.”

Ten years, ten fucking years he’d known this kid, ten years on and off they’d had this thing between them, and ten years on Jim was still flustering and confounding him like he was a schoolboy whose crush had been found out by the cool kid. It was damn irritating, was what it was, and it seriously cramped his style. Witness this genius comeback: “Don’t look so bad in ‘em, yourself,” while tugging on the hem of Jim’s gold tunic. Neither witty nor original, though definitely very true, and so obviously setting Jim up for his equally unimaginative but verifiable response that he’d look even better out of them.

Later, Jim rolled over, restless, and McCoy flung his leg over Jim’s in a sleepy and futile attempt to keep him still. It worked for a long moment that almost let McCoy drift off again, and then Jim was moving against him, burrowing in and hooking his ankle around McCoy’s.

“It’s so shitty of me,” Jim said like they’d been carrying on a conversation all this time, “but I’m glad they’re not here yet.”

McCoy didn’t ask who ‘they’ were or why Jim was glad. Ten years, remember, and no point in playing dumb. This wasn’t exactly shore leave, but it felt like it was. This wasn’t a time they were supposed to have together, but it had been nine months since he got to fall asleep next to Jim, and it felt like they were owed.

It was a dangerous feeling, that. The arrogance to think that you had come due for something good, for some kind of happiness that wasn’t really within your grasp.

Even just two years ago, McCoy had been thinking, when he came up behind Jim in front of that big window, just a handful of years ago Jim would have had him out of his clothes and desperately convinced that it was all his own idea to spread Jim out across that window and fuck him, right there, right there against the glass like he was on display for the whole universe.

 _I miss you,_ he wanted to say as he rolled over, pulling at Jim’s arm as he did. Jim followed readily, plastering himself against McCoy’s back and tucking his knees up behind. He pressed his cold nose against McCoy’s neck and laughed at the predictable grumble it earned him. McCoy kept Jim’s hand in his, pressed against his chest, and finally drifted off on the ridiculous thought that if he couldn’t read his mind in the beats of his heart, then Jim was a bigger fool than he usually took him for.

 

=^=

 

When Joanna finally let him put her down—which was a good number of seconds past when he was ready to put her down; his baby girl was no longer either of those things and the young woman in his arms was a damn sight heavier than she'd been last time he'd swooped her up and held her close—McCoy turned to Jocelyn and put his arm around her, kissed her cheek. She didn’t object when he asked if he could carry her bag, and he turned to see Jim talking to Joanna but looking at him. When McCoy lifted an eyebrow Jim’s eyes slid away and a moment later he was almost prepared to say he’d been imagining things; Jim was so engaged in his conversation with Jo, McCoy didn’t know what he would have been looking up at him and Joss for.

“You tired?” Leonard asked, wincing internally as he remembered too late that wasn’t a question she liked to be asked.

She must have been, though, because she only rolled her shoulders and nodded and put her arm through his as he led the way out onto the street in the direction of the ‘fleet personnel hotel. He only realized how insistently Joanna had been jabbering when she fell silent behind them.

“Ho…ly…” She added several words that he knew were Klingon and suspected were impolite. She was looking up with her mouth hanging open, taking in the rings and radial arms of the surreal labyrinthine structure all around them. McCoy moved back, reaching out for her, but before he could offer any kind of reassurance as to their personal safety never mind the fact of their current residence in the universe’s craziest idea yet, the hugest grin broke out over her sunburned face and she spun in a circle, arms outstretched. “This is _awesome!_ ”

When McCoy looked back over his shoulder at Jocelyn he found her watching the two of them, a smile easing the lines around her eyes. “She’s yours, I swear,” she said, and winked when Jim laughed out loud.

Jocelyn had met Ben Sulu a few years ago, just prior to the launch of Enterprise’s five year mission, and they got along just as well at dinner here at Yorktown as they had back then, talking easily together and leaving Sulu’s attention free for his little girl. Joanna was skeptical of this addition to their table, jealous that Demora had been seated next to Jim, but relaxed when Demi ended up spending most of the meal on Sulu’s lap, entirely engrossed with the dad she hadn’t seen in over a year and largely ignoring everyone else.

“How’s life on Cerberus?” Jim asked Joanna, who grinned.

“Great! Mom hates it.”

“She does?” McCoy glanced down the table at Jocelyn, who was smiling, talking animatedly, drinking coffee while the rest of them sipped cocktails, and still looking tired. “Why?”

Jo shrugged, unconcerned. “She misses home or something. She’s going back after we leave here.”

“She’s leaving you there alone?”

Jo rolled her eyes. “ _Dad_ , a lot of the younger kids are there without parents. The school complex is _totally_ safe.”

“Yeah, _dad,_ ” Jim mimicked, smirking at McCoy.

“Right, right,” McCoy mumbled, picking up his fork. “You still liking it there? Classes still good?”

“Classes are _stellar_ ,” Joanna gushed, and didn’t pause for breath until she’d talked them through the whole operation from the hands-on training they were going through on terraforming and crop management to the Galactic Civ experiences they gained through access to the Federation complex. When she told them that next year would start flight training, McCoy made himself stop listening.

They were eating in a ground-level restaurant just off the central plaza. Jim had somehow secured them seating in a private little nook of the walled-off garden patio out back, and McCoy could almost imagine they were back on Earth. Jo was still running her mouth by the time the waiters returned to take away plates and lay out a buffet of desserts on a little side table, and McCoy groaned to his feet, feeling pleasantly full and boozy and enjoying the illusion of having his feet on the ground and the reality of his family around him.

Jocelyn joined him by the sweets, nursing a fresh cup of coffee while he mused over cheesecake and apple pie.

“It’s good to see you, Leonard,” she said.

He turned to give her his full attention. “You too.” And then, against his better judgment, “Is everything all right, Joss?”

Jocelyn sighed, glancing back at the table over the lip of her coffee cup. “What’s Joanna been saying?”

“Only that you hate Cerberus and you’re going back home after you drop her back there.”

Jocelyn rolled her head from one side to the other, a little rueful smile on her lips as she watched their daughter. “There’s really nothing wrong with Cerberus, there isn’t. It’s just that.” She looked up at him and shrugged. “I’m really lonely, there. I know, it’s dreadfully unsophisticated of me, but I just. I really don’t like being off-world. I like being from Earth, and I like being on Earth. And if that makes me small-minded, well.” She cut herself off and took another slow sip of her coffee.

“Who’s saying you’re—“ McCoy started, incredulous, and then bit his tongue. _Smothering,_ that was the word she used to use. “The colonists?”

She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Only don’t call them that to their faces.”

McCoy snorted. “Yeah, I know the type. So you’re going back home?”

She nodded. “Joanna will be fine, she wouldn’t notice if I was there or not.”

“What would you say,” McCoy asked her after a long moment, after watching her shake her head and look away, watching the lines around her eyes deepen as she frowned at something, some private memory. “What would you say to leaving Jo with Jim for the night, or with Ben and Sulu, and let’s you and I go out, go…somewhere. Find some music to listen to, maybe go dancing.”

She looked at him, lips parted, surprise and the beginnings of a smile making her look years younger. He smiled too, and let his Georgia twang out for a spin. “Something tells me that you, little lady, are in desperate need of civilization and a night out on the town.”

She laughed aloud, the sound ringing over the quiet patio, and reaching for his hand she leaned briefly against his shoulder. “I’ve been traveling for twenty hours, Leonard. I’m dead on my feet. How about tomorrow?”

He ducked his head, embarrassed, but warmed by the sound of her laughter in his ears. “All right.”

“Oh, and,” she tapped him on the arm until he looked up at her. “Your daughter is fifteen years old, she doesn’t need a babysitter.”

 

=^=

 

“What happened with you and Jocelyn?”

McCoy looked sharply at Jim. He was walking beside McCoy with his hands in his pockets, looking loose and easy except for around the eyes. Not half an hour ago McCoy had been standing with Jocelyn outside the restaurant, her arm through his, waiting on the others who hadn’t come out yet. _How are things with you and Jim?_ she'd asked out of nowhere. They’d never broached the topic between them before, and McCoy hadn’t known what to say to her, either.

“I’ve told you,” he said now, looking sideways at Jim.

Jim gave a tight shake of his head, peering into the middle distance as they ambled along the street, back towards their rooms. “Not really.”

McCoy shrugged. “We weren’t happy.”

“Why not?”

“Why – Jim, what are – why are you asking?”

They slowed at the corner, Jim looking both ways down the cross street and McCoy looking only at Jim until he finally turned and squared his shoulders, looked straight at him. “You guys just seem…I mean, you seem natural together, you act like good friends when you get together.”

McCoy spread his hands. “We have a daughter together. No, don’t give me that look, Jim, your eyes are gonna roll out of your head. We were together since we were kids, now we’re raising a kid together, so we make it work. What’s so strange about that?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Jim’s voice had gone high, almost squeaky, that ‘sorry I brought it up, jeez,’ tone he fell into when he wanted to avoid an argument that was his own damn fault for instigating. He set off across the street and McCoy followed, slower.

They went up to Jim’s room together, undressed for bed and got under the sheets together. Jim had his PADD and seemed to be reading, until he seemed to be just lying there. McCoy turned off the lights and then rolled onto his side. Jim let his tablet fall to the floor and settled back against him, turning his head over his shoulder for a goodnight kiss, no words exchanged between them.

McCoy lay in the dark with his head buzzing, thinking of his daughter, all of fifteen years old, learning Federation diplomacy and farming in the same breath, and next year how to fly a shuttle. Thinking of her mother, Jocelyn Darnell, who loved her town and her community, who loved her friends and her job and the evening air in summertime. So the two of them hadn’t been suited to each other, so what? Enough time had passed, there was no bitterness there anymore. Jim’s incredulity at seeing the two of them together, seeing them as friends, it rankled. There was nothing wrong with Joss.

There was plenty wrong with him, yeah, the lion’s share of mistakes within the relationship came down to him, he’d grown up enough since then that he didn’t mind admitting it. But he didn’t feel bad about himself, either, didn’t feel wrong, exactly. No, he wasn’t suited to Jocelyn, but she wasn’t suited to him, either. Neither of them was innocent in the case of believing a relationship would work when it clearly wouldn’t, of bringing another life into the universe in their own selfish pursuit of happiness.

"I will pay you money to go to sleep," Jim mumbled into his pillow.

McCoy carefully finished rolling over and didn't even attempt to punch his pillow into a more comfortable shape. Lying still in the dark he heard Jim sigh, and then the bed shook as Jim flopped over onto his other side and flung his arm around him, sighing again as he melted against him. McCoy closed his eyes, matched his breaths up to Jim's, and drifted off.

 

=^=

 

Jim was up and getting dressed before McCoy woke. He looked way too cheerful and way too awake and McCoy muttered something about liking him better when he was moping around for no reason. Jim laughed and bent to kiss his forehead and then started god-damn whistling as he went back to doing up the buttons on his uniform. Catching McCoy's eye in the mirror, he winked.

"I have some very important captain-y things to do today, so you'll have to find someone else to play with, 'kay?"

McCoy threw a pillow at him and then, figuring as long as he was already awake, he rolled out of bed and into the bathroom to give his teeth the bare minimum attention that would satisfy his weirdly fastidious friend's 'no kissing before brushing' policy.

He caught Jim before he slipped out the door and pressed him up against the wall next to it.

They'd had their share of missteps, him and Jim. Like that night towards the end of their first year at the Academy when McCoy showed up at Kirk's room blitzed out of his mind and demanding sex. He has only fragmentary memories of the occasion but something in what he said – or hell maybe he'd just fucking said it – must have tipped Jim off as to how McCoy saw him, back then; as someone easy, someone convenient, someone who'd made it clear just how attracted he was and therefore someone who would not say no to Bones. Jim hadn't spoken to him for almost two weeks after that and then sat him down for a brutal lecture on the topic, Friends With Benefits: The Word FRIEND Comes First For A Reason, Jackass. One of the more awkward half-hours of his life but they'd come out the other side of it not only intact but stronger. Not always on the same page, but usually close enough. And particularly these last couple of years when their time together was always limited, always came with a clock ticking somewhere just out of reach, taking advantage of moments like these seemed to be a tacit agreement between them.

"Jesus," Jim laughed, breathless. "What's with you?"

"You," McCoy bit his bottom lip.

"So romantic," Jim murmured.

McCoy blinked at him, vision hazy, and couldn't read Jim at all. His eyes seemed as distant as his posture was open, body languid against the wall, lips parted. He ducked his head, kissed Jim's throat, then scraped his teeth over the spot, sucking lightly.

"Oh, come on. That's not playing fair."

"You've got another clean uniform, yeah?" McCoy bit him again and pressed his thigh between Jim's legs, pushing a hand into his hair.

"Bones, Bones, Bones, come on, get off, cut it out," Jim pushed him away with a firm hand in the center of his chest, his own rising and falling unevenly as he tried to catch his breath. "Come on Bones, don't do this, I gotta go."

McCoy groaned, but backed off.

"Jesus, Bones, look at this," Jim was grumbling, pressing his palm over his crotch, glaring down at his traitorous dick.

"Don't wanna look if I don't get to taste, that's just cruel," McCoy said, proving once again that he was not Jim Kirk and could not pull off lines like that. "You shoulda woke me up earlier," he rushed on before Jim could comment.

Jim huffed and let his hands fall to his side, turning back to the mirror to inspect the damage to his hair and probe the damp spot on his neck. "I've got things to do today. What's our one rule?"

"Uh. ‘Don't get caught’?"

Jim finally met his eyes, finally gave him a smile. "’Not while we're in uniform’, genius."

"Well," McCoy stepped up behind him, reaching around his shoulders and making a show of adjusting his uniform and smoothing down his hair in the mirror. "Wake me up _before_ you put the goddamn thing on next time, okay? Genius."

"Get off me," Jim elbowed him away but he was still smiling. "Spending the day with Joanna?"

"Yeah. Call me if you can get away from your super important captain-y duties, okay?"

Jim's eyes slipped away from McCoy's as he reached for his jacket. He nodded, and slipped out the door with a quiet, "See ya."

 

=^=

 

McCoy went back to bed, jerked off, and spent his entire shower – which was so much nicer than his showers on _Enterprise,_ he really shouldn't have squandered it – wondering what the hell was up with Jim. He came out to find a message from Joss and broke a landspeed record to get dressed and meet her and Jo for breakfast.

Jocelyn left them after paying the bill and he spent the rest of the day with Jo, talking to her, listening to her, being by turns baffled and frustrated and completely amazed by her. A couple of times she caught him gazing at her and rolled her eyes, pushing at his shoulder with an 'Oh, Dad,' and carrying on with her story. And once she leaned up against him and whispered, 'I love you, Daddy,' and he'd rocked her in his arms, just for a moment, thinking how once upon a time her whole body had fit along the length of his arm, her head cradled safely in his palm.

In the evening they had dinner with a big group of _Enterprise_ friends and family, and then he and Joss and the Sulus and Scotty and Keenser peeled off and ended up at some kind of old fashioned blues bar with a dance floor that nobody wanted to get in the center of, plenty of couples and groups toeing the line and jiving together half a step from plausible deniability, but no one really committing.

It reminded McCoy of the places he and Jim used to end up in, back in San Francisco, getting blind drunk without noticing who was around them. And as the evening dragged on it began to remind him of times he’d tried to plan a good night for Joss, show her some fun and let loose himself, only to have the whole thing fall flat.

Except that, somehow, tonight wasn’t falling flat. After a few false starts tonight was turning out to be the most fun he’d had in a long time. Which was mostly thanks to the accidental company he was keeping: despite the fact that Keenser said about one word to every hundred of Scotty’s, the two of them could keep a joke going between them for longer than should have been possible, and oh boy but Scotty knew how to order a drink.

When Jocelyn and Ben eventually braved the dance floor, McCoy found himself shoulder to shoulder with Sulu, watching them with admiration bordering on incredulity and inevitably ending up talking about missing their daughters and wondering what the hell they were doing out there. Realizing he was about a half-second from calling it quits on Starfleet and daring Sulu to join him, McCoy desperately turned the talk to _Enterprise_ gossip and asked, “You talked to Spock lately?”

“No, not really. Why?”

“Oh…” McCoy let his eyes slide away and reminded himself why he usually kept this kind of chatter for Jim, who was usually up on all Spock-related news and relayed it freely. Turned out it didn’t feel quite right going the other way so McCoy just shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Trouble in paradise, maybe.”

Sulu snorted. “What else is new.”

McCoy lifted his glass in acknowledgment. For a couple comprised of one individual rigorously dedicated to logic in all its forms and the other being probably the most grounded person McCoy had ever met on Earth let alone in space, Spock and Uhura seemed to spend the overwhelming balance of their time living out a kind of operatic drama that McCoy was convinced would be turned into a Shakespeare knockoff within their lifetimes.

McCoy watched Ben spin Jocelyn and then dip her back gracefully, the two of them laughing as the song came to an end and Ben tripped over his own feet. _Is it worth it?_ McCoy wanted to ask Sulu, really wanted to ask him, but knew that everyone and their uncle had asked him that already, and this wasn’t the time or place.

Ben and Joss rejoined them. Ben gulped the rest of his beer, wrapped his arm around his husband and promised, over Sulu’s protests, that he’d be next out on the floor. Jocelyn ordered another drink and flashed a smile at McCoy, out of breath and flushed and happy. Together they watched as Ben dragged Sulu and Keenser dragged Scotty out onto the floor and together they watched as, within half a minute, the reluctant partners had dropped the act and all four of them seemed to be having the time of their lives. Hikaru and Ben looked damn good together, reminding McCoy that they’d met at some sort of fencing tournament when they were teenagers. It showed in how they moved together, their bodies under such tight control they would have looked like 'bots if the chemistry and passion between them weren’t so obvious it was almost embarrassing to watch. And Scotty and Keenser…well, who even knew how _that_ worked, but on a ship full of drama and oversized egos, the two of them seemed solid and settled in a way that McCoy was starting to appreciate purely for how rare it was.

“Two more years,” Jocelyn mused, her arm fitting in his as they strolled out of the club and into a very convincing facsimile of midnight on a class M world. He almost thought he heard crickets. “Are you going to make it?”

He looked down at her. “Do I seem that miserable?”

She smiled at him. “Jim does.”

He felt his face freeze, his hand on her arm tighten. “How do you mean?”

“He just seems…” She frowned, looking away. “I don’t know. I barely know him. But he just seems kind of, I don’t know, dull?”

“He’s…it’s been a weird couple of months.”

“Is he being good to you?”

McCoy spared a moment to fear for any boy or girl who came calling for Joanna. “Good as he knows how. You know we’re not – there’s nothing official between us. I’m fine, Joss. Don’t fret.”

They went the rest of the block in silence, and stopped in the courtyard of the hotel where they were both staying. One elevator would take her to the suite of rooms where Ben and Hikaru were fetching their sleeping daughter from Joanna’s care, the other to where McCoy’s single room stood empty and unused several floors beneath Jim’s penthouse.

Leonard looked into her eyes and let himself think about the ways that he missed her. He missed being married. He missed having someone to come home to and someone to spend the odd hours with, no excuses needed. Her bold admission to him yesterday, _I’m lonely_ , had struck a nerve. There wasn’t anyone in his life right now that he could have said those words to, even if they were the truth, and he was beginning to suspect that they were.

He looked at her and saw how it could unfold, saw his own hand in hers, how he might draw her into the lift, kiss her in the hallway, how undressing her would surely unleash that reverence and awe she’d inspired in him since grade school.

“Go to bed, Len. We’ll see you in the morning.” She pulled him close and pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth, then turned and walked away, not looking back.

McCoy watched her go, then turned to see Jim standing beside the other lift, stock still and staring at him.

 

=^=

 

Years ago, four or five or even six, maybe, McCoy had stood beside Jim and told him that he loved the Enterprise. The admission had surprised him as much as it had Jim. It’s not that he hadn’t known it before, but it had never come up in a way that needed to be put into words. Never thought he’d need those words, but there they were. They’d been standing by the side of the road then, in Georgia, home visiting McCoy’s family on shore leave.

That was the time, he could point to that visit specifically, as the time when he began to get his daughter back. He hadn’t known what to do after the divorce, and running off to Starfleet hadn’t exactly put things into clearer perspective for him. On the damn shuttle ride out of Riverside he’d had the fate or fortune or doom to meet this loud-mouthed kid who’d be putting that mouth all over McCoy by the end of the week and sending any plans he’d thought he’d had out the window.

That same loudmouth had followed him home to Alpharetta after the Khan incident, ingratiated himself with McCoy’s relatives and won the heart of his daughter, opening the door for McCoy to start winning her back, too.

He’d almost quit, then. They’d talked about it, Jim suggesting through clenched teeth that just ditch it all, if that was what he wanted; leave the uniform behind and go home to be Daddy again. But then those unexpected words had come out of McCoy's mouth:

_I love being on the Enterprise. I could take or leave the being in space bit, but I love being ship’s doctor. I’m coming back to the stars with you._

And Jim’s relief, palpable, put his desperation of a moment before in stark relief, the way his fear at the thought of Bones leaving him behind had played out over his face and in his hands. And in his voice, as he offered to turn down the offer of the five-year mission if that was what troubled Bones. Offering everything in his power and a few things beyond it, if Bones would only stay with him.

But that was years ago. Four, five, six, who’s counting. Now Jim was disappearing into the lift before McCoy was halfway across the courtyard.

It was always something with Jim. Watching Yorktown fade in and out of focus through the transparent wall of the lift, McCoy had the thought that this was exactly the kind of place Jim was meant for. Might as well say this place was meant for Jim, he had a way of twisting cause and effect – witness: The Enterprise. To hear it told, to read the living history texts of field reports and ‘fleet memoranda, you’d have thought the ship had been commissioned for one James T. Kirk. But this here base with its inversions and illusions and allusions to normalcy somehow managing to look subtle and feel tremendous, this was a place McCoy had no difficulty imagining adapting itself to Jim.

Jim opened the door seconds after McCoy buzzed, leaning against the wall with his jacket still on. “You sure this is the room you want?”

"Don't know, you planning to take off that uniform anytime soon?"

"What's in it for me?"

McCoy rolled his eyes and pushed past Jim and into the room. “Don’t be such an infant,” he said, toeing off his shoes and taking off his jacket, dropping it onto the chair that had played host to his discarded clothes the past two nights.

The door slid shut and Jim followed him in, slowly divesting himself of his uniform jacket and overshirt as McCoy dropped down onto the sofa with a groan, glad to be off his feet.

“So,” Jim asked, sounding like somebody’s mother, “how was the big date?”

McCoy cracked one eye open and looked up at Jim, standing a few feet away with one hip cocked. He lifted a hand, reached for him. “It was good. We had fun.”

Jim took his hand, let McCoy pull him down to straddle his lap, settling his weight on his thighs.

“Scotty’s a riot,” McCoy added, running his free hand up Jim’s back, into his hair. “I forgot how funny he is when he’s off duty.”

Jim leaned into his touch, rolling his shoulders and tipping his head back. “S’cuz we haven’t been off duty in ten fucking years. Approximately.”

McCoy disentangled his right hand from Jim’s and cradled his head between both palms, thumbs rubbing behind Jim’s ears as his fingers massaged the back of his neck and up into his hairline.

Jim gave a soft little moan, an almost frustrated kind of sound, and tightened his grip on McCoy’s shirt. “You ever wonder why things can’t just be easy?”

McCoy looked up at him, the youngest person to ever make captain, the man who made cheating death look damn sexy, and he only hummed in reply as Jim slipped his hands up under his shirt.

“You should get out, if you want to.” Jim looked down at him, eyes bright. “Go back to Earth, settle down.”

McCoy’s hands stilled on Jim’s neck. “What?”

“Maybe you and Jocelyn were too much alike, maybe that’s why things were rough for you.”

“Jim, would you – what the hell, are you playing matchmaker for me and my ex-wife, why—“

“What, that’s not – no,” Jim shook his head, frowning, and tugged on the hem of McCoy’s shirt. “I mean what Jo was saying about Jocelyn missing Earth, being homesick, I mean that sounds like you."

McCoy gave a bark of a laugh. “And now you're putting words in my mouth."

"I am not!" Jim straightened, frowning down at him.

"When have I ever said anything like that?"

"When have you _not_ said it? Bones, you've been wanting out since the day you got in."

McCoy sighed and lifted a hand to rub at his own forehead. "Jim, we have had this conversation over and over. Over and over I've chosen this life, Starfleet, _Enterprise_ – all of it."

"Yeah," Jim said, voice coming out all strained. "Cuz of me."

McCoy went still, hiding behind his hand for one long moment before dropping it to rest on Jim's thigh and opening his eyes. "Do you remember when I told you that in my medical opinion your head could not possibly get any bigger?"

"Yeah."

"I was wrong."

Jim quirked a grin, orating, "Kicking ass, taking names, disproving theories: the life of James T. Kirk."

"Coming soon to a theater near me?" McCoy asked.

"Nah. Streaming straight to home-vid."

McCoy snorted, and squeezed Jim's thigh. "Look, kid. No one is denying that you are the major attraction aboard the _Enterprise_ but you not the only – you're a part of the reason but you are not the whole reason. Don't carry that burden on my behalf, okay?"

Jim's eyes were pinched around the edges, mouth tense. Looking down at McCoy, he was a restless weight in his lap, knees shifting on either side of his hips, unsettled. McCoy reached for him, tugged at his shirt, and Jim slowly bent his head to rest against McCoy's shoulder, arms going tentatively around him.

Behind them, Jim's PADD chirped.

Jim sighed, and reached over the back of the couch for it. McCoy couldn't see what he was doing, just watched the frown flicker over his face to be replaced by the cold look of concentration and focus that meant Duty.

"Where's your PADD?" Jim asked after a minute.

"Left it…dunno, bedroom maybe?"

Jim nodded and clicked a button, then tossed the tablet back onto the floor. From the other room, McCoy heard the faint chirp of an incoming message from his own.

Jim shook his head, his hands coming to rest on McCoy's shoulders as he tried to rise. "It's just a message I had to forward to the crew. It's not urgent, I promise you, Bones, you can check it later."

"You know I have to --"

Jim silenced McCoy's recitation of his Starfleet obligations with a kiss.

"Okay," Jim conceded a minute later. "Listen, so I have to – I need to talk to you about something. But not now, all right?"

"Oh, okay, sure. Cuz yeah, no problem, I can just forget I heard you say that and stop worrying about it."

Between his played-up accent and the glare he directed up at him, Jim laughed and swooped down to kiss him. "I’ll just have to make you forget I said anything, won't I."

McCoy let his head roll back against the couch cushion, looking up at Jim who was still straddling his lap, still managing to look both mussed and perfect, still the most familiar sight in his world.

"We only ever talk when we're on shore leave," McCoy mused, reaching up to trace Jim's lower lip, linger against his jaw. "No wonder this conversation never goes anywhere."

Time was, Jim would suck him off without hardly getting his zipper down. But now, Jim got his zipper down and then his jeans, followed by his socks and his boxers and punctuated with kisses and gentle nips to his ankles, the insides of his thighs, his hip bone. Settling himself on the floor between McCoy's knees Jim took him into his mouth with a slow reverence that seemed to speak of having all the time in the world.

 _I fucking love you_. He was looking at Jim when the thought began to echo in his mind. There was a bell, a raucous alarm, that started up in his mind as soon as he heard the words, but fuck it. Fuck it.

Jim fucked him, after, their hands clasped against the sheets and Jim's hot breath in his ear.

 _I love you,_ McCoy thought in the morning, watching Jim get ready once again before he was ready to be awake.

"Read that message now, okay?" Jim tossed his PADD onto the bed. "There's a briefing in one hour. They need the _Enterprise._ "

"I hate you," McCoy said, and hated himself for the way Jim simply grinned acknowledgment before taking himself out of the room.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoy my writing, I'd be thrilled if you'd take a minute to check out my original fiction. My first novel, 'Portrait of a Stranger,' is a sweet story of three chance encounters, two boys, and first love. Co-written with my fic-writing partner stardust_made, it will be released on December 26, 2018. You can order it [HERE](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KVLWHF6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1543166018&sr=1-1&keywords=Portrait+of+a+Stranger).
> 
> The first few chapters are available to read [here on our blog](https://leboncanon.wordpress.com/). We appreciate the support of our fellow fanpeople!


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